359 thoughts on “PHI 1700: Global Ethics”

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Going back to the adoption debate we discussed in class on if we have a duty to adopt, I don’t think we all have this duty. This kind of reflects the abortion debate in that if the parents do not want a child, then we should not force them to have one because they may not treat this child with the utmost love and attention it may need. In some cases, the child would be treated worse with parents that were forced to adopt than if they were raised in an orphanage. I’m not saying this is the case every time, but this is definitely possibly. Rather than forcing people to adopt children, the laws to adopt should not be as strict. There are hundreds of families who would love to adopt but are denied this right or are intimidated by the price and the long process. I understand that things such as background checks are necessary for adoption, but I think the price is an issue that can be reduced and will definitely encourage more to adopt.

During the debate whether it’s moral and acceptable to eat animals without any punishment. I was not participate in the debate, but I learn a lot from it. Everyone has different perspective on the debate because we have different culture background, so the answer is not about right or wrong. For example, abortion is regulated in the United State. On the other hand, China is one of the country that taking abortion in the hospital without any restriction. There are many reasons why people need abortion. People think they could afford the food and other stuff for a baby. Some of them are in high schools and colleges.

I don’t like to debate in a philosophy class, because there is always no right answer and it’s only about how we look at things in a certain way. I supported the side which it’s morally to each animals. Not because I think it’s morally to eat animals, it’s because we are at the top of the food chain and applied the law of jungle to other animals. Vegetarians could not represent everybody’s rights in humans. We have the right to choose what we want to eat. Furthermore, god created us with a rational mind, but animals don’t. That’s why we have the right to eat them. Moreover, we are also eating animals for survival necessity.

Should organ transplants be denied? People came from different cultures might have different response to this question. In China, most of the people believe in Buddhism. The president of the Buddhist Temple of Chicago said, “We honor those people who donate their bodies and organs to the advancement of medical science and to saving lives.” This quote means that helping others is one of the their faith. On the other hand, for religion Amish, they are forbidden from using modern medical services, including surgery, hospitalization, dental work, anesthesia, blood transfusions, or immunization. In conclusion, different religions have different responses to the donation of organ.

Should businesses be required to provide parental leave and childcare for employees? Become a parent is a huge undertaking, and for parents who are forced to take unpaid family leave. According to the US Department of Agriculture, they found that new parents spend, on average, about $70 a month for baby clothes and diapers and more than $120 a month on baby food and formula. The U.S law only requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide new parents with 12 weeks of leave, it doesn’t require this leave to be paid. So it’s a difficulty for parents to leave to take care their children without any pay. Moreover, according to a 2012 report from the US Department of Labor on family and medical leave, about 15% of people who were not paid or who received partial pay while on leave turned to public assistance for help. About 60% of workers who took this leave reported it was difficult making ends meet, and almost half reported they would have taken longer leave if more pay had been available.

Should businesses be required to provide parental leave and childcare for employees? I found the debate to be rather subjective. I think there is a lot of variables in regards to the company and individual. However, the side that was against it provided a good support of individuals taking advantage of paid leave, which will hurt the company eventually. The side that was with paid leave justified it as good support for company employees and good moral. Both are good supporting claims, but still I believe it depends on the type of company. A company like Apple would probably have parental leave because of how big and popular it is, which they therefore have to keep their reputation. However, a small mom-and-pop company wouldn’t necessary have paid leave or childcare because they can’t afford it. All in all, it really depends on who you work for and the type of company.

Regarding to our final applied ethics topic adoption, i think people have moral duty to adopt children only if they do not want to give birth, or they do not want to marry but want to have a child. If people prefer to have biological children, they should just follow their own heart. I do not think they will treat that child well if they do not want to adopt one. I personally do not agree that we have the duty to adopt children if we do not want to. I think everything we do should base on what they want. Otherwise, doing things that is not from our desire will only result in decrease our happiness.

I definitely agree with you on the idea that people who don’t want to have children should not be obligated to adopt. A persons happiness is not going to increase if they do something they don’t want to. Also if hypothetically people were forced to adopt children at what age should they adopt them. There are so many factors that affect a child and a family like economic issues

Every time I meet vegan or vegetarian people I always ask why they decided to eliminate meat, or even any animal products from their life. Some people do it because of medical conditions, while other think that eating animals is immoral. During the debate I heard both sides and I agreed with both sides at some point, but in my mind eating meat is a part of being a human being. Thousands of years ago people were surviving by hunting and eating animal. In the animal world, tigers eat zebras, and it is considered as a norm. So why is it considered immortal to eat animals nowadays? I think it is connected to animal’s conditions at the factories, and animals’ manufactures. So when people change the way they treat animals and switch to more organic way of producing animal meat, then maybe eating animals will be acceptable for more people.

Is abortion morally permissible?
The two sides both brought up good arguments for why abortion should or should not be permissible. I believe that abortion should definitely be allowed. There are many times when someone has a baby but is unable to take proper care of the baby or just isn’t ready for it yet. There is also the instance of when a woman gets raped and becomes pregnant as a result of it. It would not be right to force the woman to have to go through the pregnancy. While there is the choice of putting the baby up for adoption, the mother still has to go through the whole pregnancy, which is definitely not easy, and the baby may not get adopted for years. Abortion being allowed also gives woman the choice of whether or not to get one, which is not the case if abortion is not allowed. Deciding whether or not to have an abortion should ultimately be the mother’s choice and we should not be the ones deciding for her.

I don’t think we touched upon this topic in class but I would like to discuss the debate going on about gender neutral restrooms. Personally, I am against this for multiple reasons. The first reason would be due to pure discomfort. There is a sense of freedom when you go to the bathroom, maybe this is why girls go to the bathroom in packs. But in all honestly, imagining a world where I am applying my lipstick next to guy using a urinal really does not sound like something I would enjoy. The second reason would be because enforcing this law to all bathrooms would be very expensive. Remodeling all bathrooms to be accomoate both genders would require money that we don’t have, so why go through this change? I definitely do not see a problem for transgenders to use a bathroom they prefer, for example, if a boy transitioned to a girl, I would not mind if she used the girls bathroom because that is her right.

While talking to a friend yesterday, we started debating about the Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter issue and it made me think of this class. When people say all lives matter, it creates a problem because rather than addressing the problem, it just pushes it to the side. Of course all lives matter, but the point of the black lives matter movement is because of specific actions done to this minority. I thought about it in a philisophical sense and I came to the conclusion that people who say all lives matter are utalitarianists because they are thinking about what would make the greatest amount of people happy, but this is not the better viewpoint in this case because it ignores the overarching problem. There was this video done by buzzfeed satirizing the “all lives matter” viewpoint and it is something to think about because although it takes this view to another level for entertainment, what is said in the video is true. Here’s the link if anyone wanted to check it out!

Aristotle- Happiness; because all the virtues, purpose, “glits and glamour”, pleasure and fame, all serve to make us happy. Even though at one point we maybe working on a particular goal, the ultimate end of it all is to be happy. We never seek happiness for the the sake of anything else beyond it. I believe that the choices we make are for us to be happy in the nd. It may not be directly but our decisions are influenced by it.

Aristotle- “goldenman”; He speaks about doing/being good must be so in moderation. E.g adopting an orphan and having kids of your own. Parenting that orphan may cause conflict if it deprives your biological kid of love and affection from the parent. The act of saving someone else’ kid is honorable but not if it comes at the expense of your own kids. there must be boundaries and balances.

Hobbes- State of nature; In this state, as humans we lacked leadership. We were in a primitive state and acted purely on our own survival not caring about the well being of others or even thought about the benefits of working together. In the “state of nature”, humans had no one to answer to for any wrong doings, hence nothing was considered immoral since they weren’t held accountable, because there was no laws!

Hobbes- The prob;em of humans’ “right of nature”, suggested that a man can do whatever he has to, to ensure his own survival. Even if it infringes on another’s well being To solve this problem, Hobbes suggest that we all collectively by mutual agreement give up the right to harm others., to ensure our own survival, for the sake of assuring our own survival. In other words, he’s saying that in other for one to survive, he must be satisfied with little freedom against another as he would allow another towards him.

Held- She argues that society should act in accordance to how members of a family would. Members in a family show each other love and affection. She says that we need to adopt these “care ethics” and not act and our actions should not be inspired by Contractrian perspective.

Millis- In his writing he states, that one must have experienced both pleasure and pain in order to determine which of the two leads to the greater happiness for everyone. He says, that given a choice to choose, we must consider the option that is more desirable for everyone and not just think about ourselves and our feelings. We need to consider quality and quantity.

Foot- she argues that in order to be considered as a moral person, he must he selfless. Thinking only of the “greater good” of humanity and not acting because he “ought” to. Contrary to Kant’s view about moral laws. Foot also says that our moral actions should be second nature and that we should not have to think about the benefits these actions have towards ourselves.

To believe “the idea of universal truth in ethics is a myth” simply because the moral codes in society determines what’s right or wrong within that society. There are different cultural practices worldwide and to judge their conduct is not right. This made me think of an old proverb “whats good for the goose is not good for the ganther”, what may word for one society does not guarantee working for another. Simply put, if its not broke don’t fix it.

Today’s debate was on the issue of whether or not organ transplants should be denied or delayed for patients to are responsible for their situation. As one of the debaters, I must admit it was a difficult topic to research and argue about. I’m also not the best at arguing. I personally believe that it really depends on how extreme the situation is because there are countless scenarios that can affect a person’s opinion. Whether to view the issue on terms of efficiency or morality is difficult is completely up to you.

I thought the debate on whether or not those responsible for their situations should be denied or delayed an organ transplant went pretty well. I personally believe it depends on the degree of just how much was the person responsible for their condition. Take an avid smoker or drinker for instance who continues to smoke or drink and shows no intentions on slowing down compared to a person with a genetically bad organ, it would certainly make more sense to deny or at the very least delay the organ transplant the smoker or drinker would need because the transplanted organ would seem like a waste.

The issue on whether or not businesses should provide parental leave for parents is an important issue to discuss. There are many parents today in the U.S. who miss out on their child’s lives in order to provide. The fact that people are penalized for starting a family is ridiculous. Businesses should provide parental leave and if they are unable to, the government should assist these business to provide aid. By simple providing parental leave can benefit the child’s development in the long run, therefore better for society.

Our last debate consisted of determining if if organ transplants should be denied or delayed for patients responsible for their own condition. I was on the side where I had to argue that organ transplants should be delayed or denied. Through out my research there was strong arguments for both sides. On the yes side we had that people that took actions to cause the disfunction in the organ should have a delay on organs. It sounds very cruel and as on the yes team it was very hard to actually side with it. At the end of the day the debate was fun and scary at the same time. It was also interesting trying to understand both sides and trying to only side with one.

I personally don’t think it’s immoral to eat animals. We’ve been eating animals for centuries; it’s a big part of our lives. Meat is very nutritious and essential for our well being. I totally support those who decided to not eat meat but my opinion is that it’s in our nature that involves predators, prey, and a food chain. It’s a big part of the life cycle. If it were immoral to eat meat, then all carnivores and our ancestors were immoral. Eating plants can also be considered immoral, because it’s proven some plants do feel pain. To completely stop eating meat would mean to totally change our lifestyles. But the main point is that we’ve practiced the consumption of animals for centuries and it’s something that’s essential for our life cycle.

Abortion is something that will be discussed for many years. It gets very difficult when it comes to judging or having an opinion on abortion and whether it’s morally right or wrong. One would say every child has a right to live where an opposing side would say it’s not right to bring the child into a world where he’s not guaranteed to have basic human needs in order to live and grow. For me personally, it’s also hard to have an opinion, but I think abortion is necessary given the different situations we face on a daily basis. Abortion should be considered if the parents know for sure they wouldn’t be able to provide a normal life for their child. Both should live in conditions that are suitable for a newborn. A newborn child doesn’t deserve to suffer since the day of his/her birth. Every child deserves to live a good life with conditions where they would be able to grow and develop.

When it comes to parents choosing their children’s traits via genetic engineering there are many pros and cons to it. Pros are the technological developments. It’s amazing that we’re able to achieve this kind of technological advancements where we can manipulate DNA and as a result, dictate human traits. As far as cons, first, it’s violation of human rights because any human being is free to make his/her own choice. It wouldn’t be fair to hand pick a person. Any person can be beautiful and smart in their own way. The beauty and intelligence of a person depends on his family and how he/she is raised. We all have our special traits. So I don’t support the idea of choosing what skin or hair color a child would have. The world would be an uninteresting place if we all just pick our ‘perfect’ babies, and our understanding of perfect is a whole another topic.

The topic of maternity is an interesting subject to discuss. It’s also something we can constantly argue about. But it’s hard for me to understand those who say parental leave and childcare shouldn’t be required. I understand in the world of business and companies; main goal is the business. I was surprised to see one of my family members going to work three days after she gave birth because her job wouldn’t allow her to stay home longer. Every woman should be able to rest for a while before and after giving birth, especially considering how much of a physical stress that comes with pregnancy. I see it as discrimination, because men don’t go through these situations. A woman shouldn’t be worried whether she’ll lose her job or not after giving birth. So I definitely think all businesses should be required to support these women and help in any way possible.

I want to write about the recent issue concerning transgenders using female bathrooms. Many people have been heavily criticizing North Carolina for banning this idea. It’s not wrong of them to do so because first of all every state has a right to do so, and secondly, not everyone has to agree with what many describe as “normal”. People might not necessarily agree with certain things because of their culture or background. I don’t personally have anything against transgenders but I do believe keeping things the way they’ve always been would be a better choice. If we’re so quick to say it’s fair and that it’s a big step towards equality then I ask where do we go from here? if we want to make it fair, then can a male right before his sentencing to prison say he identifies as a transgender and ask to be sent to a women’s prison? Many are worried about rights of homosexuals and transgenders, so would it be wrong to ask whether rights and opinions of heterosexuals are being sort of ignored?

For session 8 discussion, Aristotle brings up the highest achievable human action, which is happiness. We have talked about this in the debate about abortion and whether it is immoral and immoral. I agree with Aristotle and believe that everyone achieves to do something for their own happiness. It is “the end goal of action.” If I were to compare this to myself, I will never do something that will not give me the sense of achievement or happiness. For example, I changed my major from art to business because art did not make me happy.

I enjoyed the debate on genetic engineering. The whole point of having a child is
seeing what they would be like going up but if you take that away from them, what is the point of having a natural development phase. I also believe that beauty lies within everyone and everyone is unique in their own ways. If we take that away from people, then we would all be “robots.” I remember reading a book (although I do not remember the title) about a “utopian society” that eventually falls because of the genetic engineering taking place. Although it shows advancement to technology, I still believe that genetic engineering should not be allowed.

Our group did the debate on whether it is moral or immoral to eat animals. Although I thought that this would be hard, it became a little easier as I did more research. The debate was “vague” so I thought both teams were attacking different issues. I believe that it is immoral to eat animals because animals are considered living organisms as well so it would not be morally right to kill these living organisms for our own happiness since you are taking their happiness away. However, the other team made a statement that if no one had meat, what would happen to our economy? And what would happen to the people who make money from selling meat? I believe both the teams did really well, better than I have expected.

Thomson’s “Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolly Problem” was one of the confusing lectures that we had, in my opinion. Choosing to kill one person in order to save the other five does not seem moral but we are also taking away the lives of five people in order to save one. I would not say that I would choose one specific side for this lecture. Moreover, I understand where the philosophers are going at. That one life is as important as the other five so we cannot sacrifice that one person to save five other people. However, we must choose the best decision that would achieve the greatest happiness.

Satre’s theory on existentialism- I agree with Satre when he says that we are not born with qualities that indicate the sort of person that we will be in the future. I’m not sure if this connects to fortune tellers but when I was born my mom went to a fortune teller and asked about my fortune. The fortune teller tells her that I will be born an artist so my mom believed that I will be good at drawing because it runs in her family. However, I am not good at drawing. I believe that we are what we make ourselves. I don’t think I was born a good communicator but as time went on, I continued to practice and that what makes me a marketing major.

Milgrims “The Peril of Obedience” I believe that people are obedient to be cooperative or simply out of fear. However, I believe that there is a limit to how far someone will be obedient. However, if someone exceeds that limitation, it is not because they are bad people but more so because of the authority or simply out of fear that the other side is putting on the individual. I am only obedient when it is for the good and it will achieve happiness but I will never carry out bad deeds because I know it is morally bad and will not benefit myself.

Nozick “The Experience Machine” talks about the Greatest Happiness Principle. Of course, we can’t always have happiness not have any pain. I’m not for a “utopian society” where it is ideally a perfect society and everyone is happy all the time. Happiness is great but we need to have some hardships in our lives so we can work on it and learn how to achieve an even greater happiness. For example, we will only work to have a certain degree of happiness because that’s the only degree that we know of. But if we went through hardships and pains, we would know what’s in store to achieve an even bigger state of happiness.

John Stuart Mill states in his writing that in order to determine what exactly leads to a greater happiness for people, we must first experience both pain and pleasure. He says we shouldn’t be selfish and only care about ourselves. If we every get to choose, we should choose the option that suits us all and leaves us all satisfied. Pleasure doesn’t necessarily always lead to happiness and pain won’t always lead to bad.

In class, we discussed about what’s worse, killing or letting die? It’s a difficult question to answer. Of course, we need to know the circumstances. And knowing the circumstances would be easier to have your say on it. But in general I believe killing is a far worse option you can choose than letting die. Even though both include death, letting die doesn’t involve you taking any sort of action. Maybe some can call it an indirect killing, however, for me it would have much less impact emotionally than killing with my own hands. The doctor situation, I wouldn’t kill one to save other five because I think of the saying ‘You can’t change what’s destined to happen’.

Throughout the semester, we had many interesting topics to talk about. We had many debates and heard many different opinions. One of the most interesting things I observed was the difference in opinions based on different ethnical backgrounds. I’m not going to particularly say who was who (I don’t know where everyone was from), but people surely had opposing views and not because for obvious reasons that people are supposed to have their own opinions but again I want to emphasize the ethnical background they had. Even myself, sometimes I wouldn’t agree with some opinions about non traditional things we see today, and I know it was because I was raised in a different society with its own standards.

Should businesses be required to provide parental leave and child care?
I don’t believe that all businesses need to provide parental leave. It should be up to the companies choice as circumstances are different for every company. For small businesses, they may not be able to afford it as they generally do not have a lot of capital. If an employee leaves, the other employees has to do their work while they are looking for a temporary replacement which takes time. For larger companies that can afford it, they should definitely consider it as they have more employees to spread the work across, it keeps their employees happy and hiring a new employee or a temporary employee is very expensive. Companies that are capable of allowing employees to have parental leave should strongly consider it. Requiring all businesses to provide parental leave can lead to smaller companies, or companies that don’t want to have parental leave, to end up hiring less female workers.

Is it immoral to eat animals?
Eating animals should not be immoral. Meat provides essential nutrients for us, as humans are omnivores. If it is immoral to eat animals, would that make every carnivorous animal immoral? One argument against this is that animals are living creatures, however plants are also living organisms. Also many farm animals are specifically bred just for food and live very well before they are killed humanely. What should be immoral is farms where animals are mistreated and stuffed in cages that are too small for them. I think this is a big part of why eating animals is immoral for people. This was the reason that my sister became a vegetarian and believe it to be immoral because she saw a video of the way that animals are treated in some of these farms.

Should it be acceptable for parents to choose the traits of their children through genetic engineering?
I believe it should be acceptable for parents to choose their child’s traits. While there are arguments against it stating that there will be an even larger gap between the rich and poor, I think the pros of genetic engineering outweighs the cons. With the advancement in genetic engineering, we may be able to cure incurable diseases that babies are born with or will eventually get in their lifetime. This alone should be reason enough for us to support genetic engineering in my opinion. This will strengthen our gene pool and possibly help future generations in not having to deal with these problems. It is hard to predict the affects that it will have on our society, but I think it will be an overall positive effect for us.

Should organ transplants be delayed/denied for patients responsible for their own condition?

I think organ transplants should be delayed for these patients. Patients with conditions that were genetic or through other means besides their own should have a higher priority over those who are responsible for their own conditions. They should know the risks when they are engaging in activities that may give them such conditions. They had a chance to stop themselves unlike those who were born with organs that may fail and those who had no control over it. While it may seem unfair as we are all still humans and no one should be more important than another person, I think those who didn’t have a choice deserve more of a chance than those who did.

Because tomorrow starts the month of Ramadan, I want to write about the islamophobia in this country. It’s sad to see how media with the power it has, portrays muslims around the world as a possible threat. Politicians like Donald Trump are taking advantage of islamophobia to promote their political agendas. They play on ignorance and fear to gain support from those that agree with such ignorant views. Islamophobia wouldn’t have been so big if the media and politicians used their influence to tell people that not all Muslims are terrorists. Being a Muslim, you often face prejudice. So i’ve seen many people not mentioning their religion worrying about the prejudice they’d get from others.

Taking a philosophy class taught me the definition of an argument. To me, argument was always a form of dispute that usually has a possibility of escalating into a harsh exchange of words or actions. However, after our lectures, I learned that an argument requires each side to have a factual evidence to support their claims. It’s not just expressing your opinion and telling your opposition you’re right; you have to present facts that will play in support of your opinion and make your conclusion sound correct. So now before arguing, I will know to have my facts ready even though rumbling without facts sometimes is also helpful in some situations. 🙂

I totally believe we are responsible for our actions. Free will is there and it’s up to us to decide how we want to use it. Free will is good but dangerous at the same time. It’s hard for an individual to control it thats why it’s important to teach ourselves and others the boundaries we should always consider. It’s hard to say whether a man is responsible for actions that weren’t avoidable, then we would have to question the person about his actions that led to an unavoidable reaction. If a person has mental disabilities, it’s up to us to help and make sure we prevent bad situations from approaching them. But free will is a good thing, and we have to learn how to handle it in order to maintain a balanced and responsible society.

I totally agree with Aristotle’s idea that moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, and happiness turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting virtue. Most people seeking their whole life what they truly want. It’s just intriguing to find out that Aristotle has pointed that out thousands years ago. Many people have achieved tremendous success in reaching the goal they set at the beginning only find themselves not happy when they finally got there. Because they failed to realize that happiness should be a verb and failed to perform their virtue on a regular basis. Former CFO of amazon retired last year because this legend in finance field wanted to spend his final several years with his family that he was not very familiar with. He said he was a good CFO but a terrible father. It is obvious that he doesn’t has happiness because he didn’t act based on whatever he knows. Having intellectual virtue doesn’t bring people their end goal; the plication of it dose.
I relate to this so much because it said in the slides that if you want to develop brave virtue, develop a habit of doing brave things. For the past several days when I was aware that I didn’t finish the PHI posting, I felt guilty and diminished every time when I thought about it. However, as I gradually finish them today, I felt that my confidence increase, that here’s a kind of peace of mind and happiness.

Do we have free will? Usually, people tend to argue about this topic by arguing where our choices are the sole causes of our own actions. However, Churchland points out that we should shift the debate away from that and focus on the neurobiology of self-control, because all our choices are made by our brains. We must hold individuals responsible for our actions for the survival purpose of our species. I do agree with this idea of moral responsibility. No matter there’s subjective moral fact or not, we should take responsibility for any right or wrong actions even if it does not necessarily deserve praise or blame.

After discussing oppression and the different face, I believe that oppression is still very relevant in today’s society. An example of this is gerrymandering, the method of manipulating district border to achieve political advantage against the opposing party. While this may sound fine and not a big of a deal, in reality, this method oppress the minority voters by drawing the district line in a way that dilutes the minority even if they are the majority in the area. For example in a neighborhood where the ratio of Blacks to Whites is 3:2, and because of district remapping the minority, in this case, the Whites, can sometimes end up with 3 representatives instead of 2. Past studies show that minority electorate leans liberal, packing minorities is more or less packing Democrats, causing gerrymandering to favor Republicans in the same way it favors whites. To wrap it up, Gerrymandering is a form of oppression that deprives certain ethnicity the ability to vote effectively and should be abolished.